I think Between The Buried And Me should be returned to the Metal-Archives.

Now, I'm bringing up a (relatively) new point which I think should be considered, since they might not be able to get on based on Parallax, Parallax II, The Great Misdirect or even Colors.

I think the debut album "Between The Buried And Me" qualifies the band for inclusion into MA.

The Guidelines wrote:

First and foremost, for a band to be metal, it must have metal riffs. This point should be fairly straight-forward and obvious. Nevertheless, when it comes to some genres or styles, it's not always implied that the music is rooted in metal or is substantively comprised of metal riffs. For example, grindcore can either be rooted in punk (ex. Anal Cunt) or in death metal (ex. Nasum, Pig Destroyer, Agathocles); metalcore rooted in hardcore/-core (ex. Atreyu) or in metal (ex. The Red Chord); and so on. Such music can be borderline, but still be acceptable. Some bands have mostly chugging, fuzz, or noodling, with minor metal influences; this does not make these bands metal. The metal elements must outweigh the non-metal ones.

I think in the case of BTBAM's debut album, the metal elements outweigh the non-metal ones by a vast margin. Yes, there's still hardcore and progressive elements, there's some noodling here and there, but the music is overall heavier and much more death metal oriented than later outputs. Granted, I would opine that recent albums by BTBAM are metal as well.

What I'm hearing is largely a melodic death metal base with metalcore and progressive metal (Not necessarily the same as the progressive rock or neoprog of later albums. This one is a lot more straight forward) mixed in. There's a tiny bit of thrash metal too. It sounds very similar to the Darkest Hour albums that came out just a couple years prior, or the first two albums by Underoath. Though it is raw compared to later albums, it's almost comparable to a cleaner and progressive version of Prayer for Cleansing... which was indeed a sort of predecessor to BTBAM.

Comparisons between bands is useless though, overall, since what really matters is what the music contains, here are the Youtube links because I'm too lazy to mediafire the album. Also, I'm aware that this album was probably looked over by the moderators. I think it is metal enough to deserve a second look, however.

I'm aware of previous posts on the topic of Between the Buried and Me (or BTBAM as some like to call them). They all have a pattern: Someone comes in and posts "Y U NO ACCEPT BTBAM?!" and a moderator posts "More core than metal".

While listening to The Silent Circus, I've come to think that this album is probably even more metal than their self titled. Definitely lots of technical death metal here. Still some -core, and the 5th and 6th songs aren't metal at all. There's no way to objectively and precisely determine the percentage of metal + non-metal. If there was, the site would have a relatively easier time with the guidelines! They could just put in a rule that says "Alright, run this album through the Magical Riff Metalness Machine and if it's 51%/75%/97% metal then the band is acceptable for the site!"

The debut album may not be "melodeath" like At The Gates or In Flames, it has plenty of melodic death metal influences. I even hear some speed metal, though that might be the falsetto vocals in one of the songs.

I shouldn't say there isn't absolutely no way to objectively determine the metalness. Just very difficult, you'd have to go riff by riff and determine "Is this metal? Is it not metal? Is it partly metal?" - the first riff of More of Myself to Kill I hear as metal. However, just 10 seconds in, I hear what is clearly an old-school hardcore style of play. The guitar riff and galloping bass drum reminds me more of Wisdom in Chains than Slayer. Some might disagree and call that second riff metal, or that first riff hardcore. I've heard similar riffs from Cattle Decapitation or even Rumpelstiltskin Grinder. BTBAM loves to hop around genres, especially on later albums. I swear I heard a country hoe-down in one of their songs on Colors. To say that they are "more core than metal" is an oversimplification. If anything, they are more progressive-music (whether it be progressive metal or progressive rock is up to debate) than either -core or metal on recent albums. I understand that this isn't the progressive rock archives either.

Death metal and progressive metal form the basis of their songwriting even to recent albums. That's my opinion and I don't expect my opinion alone to be a driving factor in letting a band back in. I'm just stubborn and vocal. I would like it if either The Silent Circus or BTBAM's debut album were called metal enough and the band was allowed back in. Metal riffs are predominant on both of those albums. But if BTBAM remains blacklisted I'm not going to put on a rage face and flip a table.

Their relation to the metal community is strong, for sure, but a more convincing argument could be made on that aspect for Praying Mantis because of their strong ties to the NWOBHM movement in the 1980s and continued support from fans of the genre in recent days. But I argued about that band, mainly because I like the name and I keep praying mantises as pets (I have a Mantis Religiosa release in my library). Nothing new... yet.

I'll admit, I didn't look far enough for previous posts specifically about Between The Buried And Me (as in the album) or The Silent Circus. Turns out the last person to post about those was in 2009 and it was me. Soon after BTBAM was deleted from MA. That also seems to be my last post about the band's exclusion from MA as well. I'm not about to say "HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT" for all the previous stuff I typed, but if I had remembered about that prior post from 2009 I probably would've cancelled the post and went right to watching The Big Bang Theory. So, apologies for that. I won't post about Between the Buried and Me anymore. I honestly don't see them getting more metal in the future, even if there's still more death metal riffs mixed in with all the weird stuff. Unless they have a radical shift in sound.

_________________And they'll tell you black is really white - The moon is just the sun at night - And when you walk in golden halls - You get to keep the gold that falls - It's Heaven and Hell

Dude, I'm a fan of BTBAM, I know their discography very well and if I had the last word, I would include them 'cause I consider them progressive metal. Thing is, all the metal gods don't have the same opinion and that's fine with me. Derigin heard the last album and his opinion still stands.

Sorry Goatfangs, it's still a strong "no" for BTBAM. We don't doubt that they have some death metal aspects to their music, but it's not the root of their music, and it certainly doesn't act as anything to eclipse the non-metal basis in their music. Their music isn't straightforward or obviously based in the use of metal riffing, as you make clear in your own posts where you say "you'd have to go riff by riff" just to understand if it's metal or not. No, I'm sorry, you just don't get it. The arguments you make seem more geared towards trying to convince us that it's something it's not, by putting on this face that it can compare to other situations (Praying Mantis and NWOBHM, really?), by cherry picking specific examples (what else can you do with a band that so loosely "hops" around styles?), or suggesting that it should be added because it has roots in a variety of genres you find difficult to define (Progressive? Thrash? Melodeath? and then somehow a Hoe-Down? What?). It doesn't seem as though you, yourself, feels totally convinced by your own convictions. That sense of your own doubt lingers and shows to us that - if an advocate can't honestly support it - how can we be convinced of that? Why should we be convinced of that?

The thing I don't think you truly understand with the way the site works is that we *don't* analyze music riff by riff, or break it down in that manner. It's not a science so much as it's a form of intuition, understanding, and experience. It's really not as hard as it might be made out to be; we don't calculate down to the last chord, or rely on ideas like "first riff, second riff" as a worthwhile basis for reasonable discussion. It's one reason why, when we do use comparisons, it's comparisons of a whole - not as a cop-out - and we're often reluctant to do that in the first place. Because, for all intents and purposes, the groundwork for comparison is non-existent without having to create your own variables of comparison; your own biases. You shouldn't because there is no such thing as a fair and positivistic comparison; what makes something equally metal, equally non-metal, or (without a shadow of a doubt) the same. The way we handle the judging of bands doesn't come down to a scientific experiment. It's an interpretative analysis, and one that takes a good understanding of music (particularly metal) to really get. Either you end up hearing it or you don't, and when you have to constantly question every riff, every chord, every breakdown, every beat of the drum... then, I'm sorry, you're not getting it. It should never have to come to that point when trying to understand if something is "metal enough" or not.

This is perhaps why you tend to "butt heads" when you embark on these crusades, where you have those tendencies to view works of music as "things" you can reduce down to every bit and piece... and where an analysis becomes more focused on its parts than the sum of its parts. When it came to Soulfly, we - as staff - were not truly set on viewing it as metal until the last album. Of course others might argue differently, and say otherwise, but for us it's either based and rooted in "metal" or it's not. Especially for a project that had a history of doubtful "metalness" (as this site considers "what is metal"), it took a few steps for us to truly convince ourselves of that direction. That was a prolonged movement, something which tends to take time when not readily apparent and dubiously borderline. The same is certainly true with BTBAM, in that its basis in metal music (assuming there would be a basis) is certainly not clear enough to say it's "metal". The problem being that, as you clearly exemplified in your schizophrenic look at their discography, its "metalness" is chaotic; its varied; its not coherent. And, if history is to tell us anything, it's really not the basis of their music, so much as a flavor at any given time - something which seems to be a general characteristic of deathcore (and why BTBAM makes a good example of what is unacceptable). This is even more understandable as you see it now moving more and more towards the latest flavor of the day, which is djent. Honestly, unless BTBAM was to make a heel turn in their music, I don't see it (personally) moving much towards a basis in metal. It's no Soulfly.

Now, all that said, it might be wise to disembark this crusade and head on home. Crusades like this will get you no where, because it's apparent to us that there is nothing to crusade about. I bring up Soulfly again because I'm going to use it as an example of what not to do; not because it's in the Archives (it's in the Archives because we felt it belonged in the Archives), but because for years you tried pushing for its inclusion despite our clarification to you that we were judging it on its own merit with each addition of new material. It ultimately was approved because we were already convinced, because we had already convinced ourselves by that point. By constantly requesting reanalysis in the way that you did, you weren't doing anyone any favors. In large part because I don't think you understood the finer points of how we judge.

I wouldn't really call them "crusades"... kind of has a Christian connotation to it and I've never liked Christianity.

I admit, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes, but I respect the site and the owners. I'm not attempting to force my opinion on you guys. (Doing so would be a crusade, perhaps)

I try to be as respectful as possible even if I get "a strong no".

The Praying Mantis thing is true - they were part of the NWOBHM movement, but their music isn't NWOBHM. AOR with some metal elements is what I believe the consensus is. Until they release a new album (assuming it's metal) they won't be brought up in earnest, at least by me.

_________________And they'll tell you black is really white - The moon is just the sun at night - And when you walk in golden halls - You get to keep the gold that falls - It's Heaven and Hell

As far as I can tell from searching the Washington DC based band Vestiges was black listed for 2 reasons, and I'll argue here that they no longer apply. The first reason was that they were too "post hardcore" in sound, and while I'll say that is probably true for their earlier material, the band has evolved into a black metal band now with a much more prominent influence from bands sounding like Drudkh and Wolves In The Throne Room. The second reason they were black listed is because there seems to be an issue about whether they had actual physical releases or not. Well since bands can now be listed for their online only releases, if they meet certain criteria, this doesn't apply any longer either. Now for proof of their metalness, I suggest checking out the material on their upcoming split with Panopticon, which you can stream here on their main site here: http://wearevestiges.com The first track is basically just an intro but the second track should give you an idea of what they sound like these days. They also have a full length and a couple of splits available for download here: http://wearevestiges.bandcamp.com I'm not in or affiliated with the band but they are from my area, I have seen them play live and I am a fan. I'll gladly do all the work of entering in their material if they are taken off the black list. I hope this clears things up for them as I believe they belong on the metal archives now that the digital release rules have changed.

Our album submission was rejected because the album will be out 26/02/2013. Is it possible to accepet our submission dispite the date in the future!?Our label has already published the news for the release:

This demo/album must be released already. An upcoming release is not acceptable: wait until the actual release date before submitting the band. We used to accept such bands, until we realized many of them were all talk and never even released the demo for real. So we're very strict on this. Expect any band whose sole album is upcoming to be insta-rejected by the first moderator who sees it in the queue.

Just wait six weeks or so, not a big deal.

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Von Cichlid wrote:

I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

As far as I can tell from searching the Washington DC based band Vestiges was black listed for 2 reasons, and I'll argue here that they no longer apply. The first reason was that they were too "post hardcore" in sound, and while I'll say that is probably true for their earlier material, the band has evolved into a black metal band now with a much more prominent influence from bands sounding like Drudkh and Wolves In The Throne Room. The second reason they were black listed is because there seems to be an issue about whether they had actual physical releases or not. Well since bands can now be listed for their online only releases, if they meet certain criteria, this doesn't apply any longer either. Now for proof of their metalness, I suggest checking out the material on their upcoming split with Panopticon, which you can stream here on their main site here: http://wearevestiges.com The first track is basically just an intro but the second track should give you an idea of what they sound like these days. They also have a full length and a couple of splits available for download here: http://wearevestiges.bandcamp.com I'm not in or affiliated with the band but they are from my area, I have seen them play live and I am a fan. I'll gladly do all the work of entering in their material if they are taken off the black list. I hope this clears things up for them as I believe they belong on the metal archives now that the digital release rules have changed.

The track on the Panopticon split can be considered black metal, but you said all their other albums aren't? I'll say that we'll wait for their full length before approving the band.

Well I wouldn't say that all the other releases aren't metal, but they're def borderline and I know better than to try to argue borderline stuff here. For example on one of their splits they do a cover of the old Cranberries song Zombie with harsh vocals. Not exactly tr00 but it doesn't really represent their normal sound either. Perhaps give a song or two on their full length a listen and see what you think yourself.

Hey Guys,my band Circus of Fools has been rejected because of being not metal enough and i'm not sure if the person who reviewed it had been listening to the right material. I'm aware of the fact that the material on the myspace site is not metal at all, but the myspace site is not up to date. Appropriate material would be the two songs on our ReverbNation site www.reverbnation.com/circusoffools or i could send someone our new demo. If you still think it is not metal after listening to them, i would let it go but i would be happy if you could tell me how you would label the music we make otherwise… I always thought that the metal influence is biggest in our music.

Well I wouldn't say that all the other releases aren't metal, but they're def borderline and I know better than to try to argue borderline stuff here. For example on one of their splits they do a cover of the old Cranberries song Zombie with harsh vocals. Not exactly tr00 but it doesn't really represent their normal sound either. Perhaps give a song or two on their full length a listen and see what you think yourself.

I'm almost 100% certain that I blacklisted them at some point in 2011 mainly based on "The Descent of Man".

Hey Guys,my band Circus of Fools has been rejected because of being not metal enough and i'm not sure if the person who reviewed it had been listening to the right material. I'm aware of the fact that the material on the myspace site is not metal at all, but the myspace site is not up to date. Appropriate material would be the two songs on our ReverbNation site http://www.reverbnation.com/circusoffools or i could send someone our new demo. If you still think it is not metal after listening to them, i would let it go but i would be happy if you could tell me how you would label the music we make otherwise… I always thought that the metal influence is biggest in our music.

I see only one song on Reverbnation. You included it with the original submission, so I think the mod who rejected it listened to it. The blacklist note says "industrial/gothic rock" which I can agree with, kinda metallic indeed, but not sufficiently so. The five songs on Myspace are indeed not metal. So the available facts so far are: five unacceptable songs vs. one (two maybe?) kind of metallic ones for a discography of two demos. Not acceptable.

Hey Guys,my band Circus of Fools has been rejected because of being not metal enough and i'm not sure if the person who reviewed it had been listening to the right material. I'm aware of the fact that the material on the myspace site is not metal at all, but the myspace site is not up to date. Appropriate material would be the two songs on our ReverbNation site http://www.reverbnation.com/circusoffools or i could send someone our new demo. If you still think it is not metal after listening to them, i would let it go but i would be happy if you could tell me how you would label the music we make otherwise… I always thought that the metal influence is biggest in our music.

I listened to the song on RN, and additional songs on Youtube, not Myspace (I didn't even see you had a Myspace). I don't know if they were outdated or not, but they were generally less metal than Rammstein. Sorry. Not bad stuff, I dug some of your songs, and I was happy to see that for once, the "gothic" tag wasn't misapplied as there was a real goth rock influence (instead of the usual "it has violins and/or female vocals, it's gothic, lol!"), but it's not nearly metal enough despite the influence.

_________________

Von Cichlid wrote:

I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

Hey Guys,my band Circus of Fools has been rejected because of being not metal enough and i'm not sure if the person who reviewed it had been listening to the right material. I'm aware of the fact that the material on the myspace site is not metal at all, but the myspace site is not up to date. Appropriate material would be the two songs on our ReverbNation site http://www.reverbnation.com/circusoffools or i could send someone our new demo. If you still think it is not metal after listening to them, i would let it go but i would be happy if you could tell me how you would label the music we make otherwise… I always thought that the metal influence is biggest in our music.

I listened to the song on RN, and additional songs on Youtube, not Myspace (I didn't even see you had a Myspace). I don't know if they were outdated or not, but they were generally less metal than Rammstein. Sorry. Not bad stuff, I dug some of your songs, and I was happy to see that for once, the "gothic" tag wasn't misapplied as there was a real goth rock influence (instead of the usual "it has violins and/or female vocals, it's gothic, lol!"), but it's not nearly metal enough despite the influence.

Thank you very much for your opinion! i think the biggest problem is that the bands sound has evolved so much from before summer 2012, before the new "From a Distant Land" Demo until now (and the youtube channel is indeed full of songs from before summer 2012 ). I wouldn't have dared to post it here then, because i did make just industrial/goth-rock when i was alone. But since the other guys are part of the band and brought there influences into it, especially in drum work and riffing, i considered it to be metal, even with a thrash metal approach, and this was also the reaction of the audience. So i thought it would be appropriate to post it here. I'm very sorry.Still. I think we're evolving into a metal band and maybe already with the next release, which will be our first full length with a 20 minute progressive epos and some smaller songs on it, you will think as well so would it be possible to keep the article on hold until then?

P.S. Sorry for my awful english, but it's late here in germany and i've problems with my concentration

"Side-projects of notable metal band members (ex. Pain, Wongraven, Die Verbannten Kinder Eva's). We prefer side-projects to be on a label with worldwide distribution and have a full-length release, but do not require it (this is to avoid a flood of bedroom/MySpace bands).".

I know that Foscor and Lux Divina are not very famous bands, but for example, we have in metal-archives the bands Fejd or Ywolf, whose members don't come from famous bands either.

I would like to understand why the band I submitted, Loathsome, was rejected for not being metal enough. It sounds no less metal than the typical drone/doom band, and the riffs certainly sound heavy enough. The band itself sounds practically identical to Hell, a doom metal band which was accepted on the site. I can see that a few songs sound more metal than others, while some are more noise-based, but after listening to a majority of their work, it sounds way more metal than noise to me.